$23 Million Verdict After a School Bus Carrying Disabled Students Struck a Tree in Wolcott

On June 8, 2015, a school bus was carrying three students with disabilities and an aide along Todd Road in Wolcott, Connecticut. The driver, employed by Worhunsky Corporation under contract with the local school district, said he swerved to avoid a green car that had crossed into his lane. The bus left the road and struck a tree.

Among the students on board was a Wolcott boy who was 12 years old and had autism. The impact caused him severe traumatic brain injury, including skull fractures and bleeding in his brain that required emergency surgery. He survived, but the injury changed him. In the years after the crash his behavior deteriorated to the point that he could no longer remain in a public school placement, and he struggled to recognize members of his own family.

The family brought suit in Superior Court at Waterbury against the bus driver, Mark Hudobenko, and against the insurers with a stake in the outcome: Worhunsky Corporation's insurer for the bus company's liability, and Utica National Insurance, which covered the claim tied to the driver of the green car that was never identified or located after the crash, treated as an uninsured motorist claim. The case required the jury to sort out how much of the blame belonged to the bus driver's decision to swerve, and how much belonged to whoever was driving the car that forced the swerve in the first place.

Michael D'Amico and Jeremy D'Amico of D'Amico & Pettinicchi represented the family at trial. The evidence covered both the mechanics of the crash and the extent of the boy's injury: skull fractures, brain bleeds, emergency neurosurgery, and a documented decline in his functioning and behavior afterward that separated him further from mainstream schooling and even from his own family's ability to reach him.

On November 25, 2019, the jury returned a verdict of $23.05 million, apportioning 74 percent of the fault to the bus driver and 26 percent to the driver of the green car. The award broke down to $3.05 million in economic damages, covering medical treatment and the ongoing cost of his care, and $20 million in non-economic damages for the severity and permanence of his brain injury.

The case is a reminder of how school transportation liability works when more than one negligent act contributes to a crash: the jury did not have to decide that only one driver was at fault, and instead weighed the bus driver's evasive maneuver against the conduct of the driver who prompted it, assigning percentages of responsibility to each. For a child who was already navigating the world with autism before the crash, the injury compounded an existing vulnerability rather than introducing an isolated new one, a distinction the case's damages evidence addressed directly.